John Ledyard (1751 - 1789) is an early American explorer you've probably never heard of, yet during an era deprived of cars and jets Ledyard managed to travel more than most of us will experience in a lifetime. John Ledyard circumnavigated the world when its map was still incomplete - during the literal birth of this nation. Ledyard's resume is quite extensive: conducted Dartmouth College's first play, winter expedition, and abandoned the young college in a dugout canoe he felled and fashioned on the campus lawn; sailed with Captain Cook on his final Voyage in search of the Northwest Passage (1776-1778); became the first American to receive a Tahitian tribal tattoo and step foot on the future states of Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska; wrote the first book protected under U.S. copyright; would attempt to be the first person in human history to walk around the world - an expedition that, had it succeeded, would have beaten Lewis and Clark to the punch in crossing the American continent. In fact, after reading Ledyard's The Last Voyage of Captain Cook (1783), Thomas Jefferson would contact the young American explorer and personally implant the maddening concept of a walk around the world - "I suggested to him the enterprise of exploring the Western part of our continent by passing thro St. Petersburg to Kamschatka, and procuring a passage thence in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka sound, whence he might make his way across the Continent to America."
Today the Anchorage Alaska Public Lands Information Center conducts historic Captain Cook Walking Tours. These tours celebrate the stories that brought Cook and his crew, Ledyard included, to Alaska.